THE CHURCH

387337_539482179423908_1594804153_nIn the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the church comprises the “whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be, gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof” (25.1). This is otherwise known as the invisible church. In another sense, the church is the body of the faithful (1 Cor. 12:27Eph. 2:21–22Rev. 21:29), consisting of those throughout the world who outwardly profess faith, together with their children (WCF 25.2). This is otherwise known as the visible church.

The Greek word that is translated as “church” in the Bible is ekklēsia. Conscious as we should be of the etymological fallacy (the idea that a word means what its composite root means), in this case it would seem to have merit. Thus, ekklēsia translates the Hebrew word qahal, the noun form meaning “assembly” or “congregation” and the verb essentially signifying “to call.”

Often in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word qahal is translated synagōgē. Common to both Hebrew and Greek words is the idea of assembling together before the Lord. Thus, the Bible translation of Paul’s day (the Septuagint) rendered Deuteronomy 4:10 (“assemble the people before me”) using the word ekklēsia — the gathering together of the Lord’s people as a covenant community before their covenant God.

Taking this etymological clue, we can expand what the word church in the New Testament means along three lines of thought:

First, the preposition ek (or ex) in ekklēsia suggests a particular dimension to the meaning of the word: the church is an assembly of people called out of the world. The church comprises those who are “called to be saints [holy ones]” or, possibly, “the holy called ones” (Rom. 1:71 Cor. 1:2), just as their Old Testament counterparts were called “a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). As the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 AD ) affirmed, the church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” We are “set apart as holy” (2 Tim. 2:21); we are chosen to be holy (Eph. 1:4); we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Col. 3:12), “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), “a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9), and “a holy temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). Brutally honest as we must be about the unholiness of the church, “the church is so holy that every one of its members is a saint” (Philip Graham Ryken).

Second, the church is an assembly called together into a homogenous, integrated unity. Several perspectives reinforce this in the New Testament. The church comprises the “family of God.” Each member of the church has become an “adopted son” (huiothesiaRom. 8:159:4Gal. 4:5Eph. 1:5). Now we are “members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19), in which Jesus Christ is our elder brother. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (Heb. 2:11). We come to God in prayer, saying, “Our Father” (Matt. 6:9). To those whose experience of family is dysfunctional in this world, the experience of belonging to a community of brothers and sisters is redemptive and restorative, particularly when they experience the loving concern (fellowship [koinōnia]) of “those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).

Third, the church is comprised of those who are called into fellowship with the Lord. The church of God lives in God’s presence. Paul, addressing the issue of the need for orderliness and interpretation in the use of the Apostolic gifts of prophecy and tongues, adds the remark that when these gifts are correctly used, an unbeliever will be forced to declare that “God is really among you” (1 Cor. 14:29). From the very beginning, the community of the Lord’s people was called together in order to worship the Lord (Ex. 3:12). The primary relationship is vertical, not horizontal.

This brings us to the nature of the church as both here and there, on earth as well as in heaven: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:22–24).

The church, then, consists of those whom the Lord has called out of the world into union and fellowship with Christ and into communion with each other. And, as John Calvin (citing the church father Cyprian) says, “To those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother.” (Institutes 4.1.1). I wonder if you would agree with him. (Dr. Derek Thomas)

FORSAKEN FOR US!

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).

Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so that we would never have to utter that phrase. Jesus willingly suffered being forsaken by God so that we would never be forsaken by God. Jesus allowed the darkness of Hell to enclose Him because He refused to allow that darkness to enclose all who were given to Him by the Father. What manner of love is this, beloved, that Christ would drink the cup of God’s infinite, eternal, inexpressible wrath in our place so that we might be called the children of the living God?! No price was too high for Him in order to save us from our sins. The Good Shepherd laid down his life for His sheep. Do you see what utter blasphemy it is to say that God has abandoned someone who is trusting in Christ? Sometimes believers “feel” that God has forsaken them … what Martin Luther called the dark night of the soul … but God will never forsake His children because Christ was forsaken in their place. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”). And again in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Let us always remember what Christ suffered in our place so that we might be restored into union and fellowship with God, so that we would never be made to cry out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Why has God accepted sinners such as you and me? Scripture gives only one reason … God has accepted us because one Friday afternoon, over 2000 years ago, He forsook His Son, our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, in our place!! Our response to Christ’s work on our behalf is nicely summed up in the words of John Newton:

 

Let us love and sing and wonder, Let us praise the Savior’s Name!
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder, He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame.
He has washed us with His blood, He has brought us nigh to God.

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The Marks of The Church

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If you move to a new town, you have to find a new church. The search for a new church can be difficult and frustrating. If you pick up the Yellow Pages and look under “Church,” you are likely to confront a bewildering array of possibilities. Perhaps you already have some fairly definite ideas of what you want in a church. You may be looking for a good youth group or active senior citizens group. You may want a powerful preacher or a certain kind of music. You may be very loyal to one denomination or you may like to “shop around.”

What should you be looking for in choosing a new church? Your first concern should be that the church be a “true church.” You do not want to choose a church that is part of a sect or a cult. You do not want a church that still bears the name of church, but whose lampstand Christ has removed (Revelation 1–3). How do you recognize a true church? This question was acute at the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century basically argued that Christ preserved the true church through the work of the Pope, the bishop of Rome. The true church is easy to recognize because it is in fellowship with the Pope. Any church that does not submit to the Pope is a false church.

The Reformers did not accept Rome’s approach. They argued that the true church is not marked by submission to a supposedly infallible apostolic office—the Papacy—but by acceptance of apostolic truth. Luther declared that “the sole, uninterrupted, infallible mark of the church has always been the Word.” The true church is marked by submission to the Scriptures.

Anyone familiar with the Reformation knows the importance of the Bible in the formation of Protestantism. Against the claims of the medieval church that tradition, bishops, and councils were authoritative along with the Bible, the Reformers insisted that the Bible is the only absolute authority for Christians. The Bible must judge all traditions and church officers and assemblies. It is not surprising then that the Reformers taught that the centrality of the Word is the key mark of the true church. As one of the Reformation confessions put it, the true church is known “in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church” (Belgic Confession, Article 29).

This general recognition of the Word as the mark of the true church came to specific expression. Among the Reformed churches, eventually three marks were identified: faithful preaching of the Word, faithful administration of the sacraments, and faithful exercise of discipline.

In focusing on the marks of the church, the Reformers were not saying that all a good church needs to have are the marks of the church. They focused on the marks because the marks make the true church recognizable. The church of Christ has many more characteristics than the three marks. But these characteristics—we might mention prayer, fellowship, devotion—are not so easy to observe. The marks are important because they display the faithfulness of the church.

PREACHING

Faithful preaching was the first mark of the true church because preaching most directly brings God’s Word to His people. The Reformers stressed that God’s great means of speaking to His people was by preaching. Luther talked of the several forms that the Word takes. The first is the eternal Word, the second person of the Trinity. The second is the incarnate Word, Jesus. The third is the inscripturated Word, the Bible. The fourth is the “shouted Word,” the preaching. At the heart of Christian worship and life is the ministry of the Word in preaching. If preaching is not faithful, the life of the church cannot be faithful. It is an essential mark of the true church.

Calvin added that this first mark of the true church is not just faithful preaching of the Word. A man standing on a street corner may be faithfully declaring the Word, but there is no church. Calvin said that in a true church a further dimension of this mark is that the Word must also be faithfully heard and received. Reformed worship is sometimes called a dialogue between God and His people—God speaks and His people respond. Calvin’s point is that if God speaks through the preaching of His Word and no one is listening and responding, then no church exists. But where the Word is faithfully preached and received, there the mark of the true church can be seen.

SACRAMENTS

The second mark of the true church is the faithful administration of the sacraments. At first glance we might be tempted to think that this mark is really more a sixteenth-century concern than a contemporary one. The Reformation, after all, confronted the Roman church, which stressed the absolute centrality of its seven sacraments. Did the Reformers make the sacraments a mark of the church just to distinguish their teaching of two sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper) from the sacraments of Rome?

The Reformers certainly had a more fundamental concern than just to separate themselves from Rome on the sacraments. They were convinced that the sacraments are a fifth form of the Word, the visible Word. That phrase—“the visible Word”—had originated with Augustine and Calvin in particular had repeated it. The sacraments visibly display the very heart of the Gospel. Baptism shows that we are saved only by the washing away of sin in Jesus, and the Lord’s Supper shows that Christians live only through the body and blood of Christ offered as a sacrifice on the cross. These sacraments are an observable mark of the true church. In a true church the biblical sacraments are faithfully administered and received.

DISCIPLINE

The third mark of the true church is discipline. The exercise of the discipline taught in Scripture demonstrates the church’s determination to pursue holy living before the Lord. If flagrant heresy or notorious unchristian behavior is tolerated in the church, how can that church be genuinely receiving the Word of God? Paul clearly insists that the church exercise such discipline (1 Corinthians 5:1–513). Discipline is necessary in the church according to the Belgic Confession (Article 32) to preserve harmony, unity, and obedience. Where such discipline is missing, the church is not recognizable as a holy community.

The early Reformers such as John Calvin did not identify discipline as a mark of the church. Calvin certainly recognized the vital importance of discipline and even called it “the sinew of the church.” Perhaps he felt that discipline was too subjective to function well as a mark. How faithful must a church be in discipline to qualify as a true church? But later Reformers saw the mark of discipline as one way of testing Calvin’s concern that the Word not only be preached but be truly received. If a Christian community does not exercise and submit to discipline to some extent, then no true church exists.

Each of the three marks is an expression of the one great mark, the Word. Each mark expresses an aspect of the Word’s life and power in the church. The true church submits to the Word of God. As the church father Tertullian said, “They are true churches which hold to what they received from the apostles.”

By God’s appointment the church is a vital and necessary institution. Each Christian needs the fellowship and ministry of the church. But that spiritual need can only be met by a true church. Today the variety of churches in the Yellow Pages makes the marks of the church more important and useful than ever. The Reformation insight into the Word as the great mark of the church must still guide and direct us to true churches of Christ. (Dr. W. Robert Godfrey)

Sweet Forgiveness

Sweet Forgiveness

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“The forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

Could there be a sweeter word in any language than that word “forgiveness” when it sounds in a guilty sinner’s ear, like the joyful notes of liberation to the captive Israelite? Blessed, forever blessed, be the dear star of pardon that shines into the condemned cell and gives the perishing a gleam of hope amid the midnight of despair! Can it be possible that sin, such sin as mine, can be forgiven, forgiven altogether and forever? Hell is my portion as a sinner—there is no possibility of my escaping from it while sin remains upon me. Can the load of guilt be lifted, the crimson stain removed? Can the unbreakable stones of my prison-house ever be loosed from their mortices, or the doors be lifted from their hinges?

Jesus tells me that I may still be cleared. Forever blessed be the revelation of atoning love that not only tells me that pardon is possible, but that it is secured to all who trust in Jesus. I have believed in the atoning sacrifice, even Jesus crucified, and therefore my sins are at this moment and forever forgiven by virtue of His substitutionary pains and death. What joy is this! What unimagined bliss to be a perfectly pardoned soul! My soul dedicates all her powers to Him who by His own unpurchased love became my Savior and provided for me redemption through His blood. What riches of grace does free forgiveness exhibit! To forgive at all, to forgive fully, to forgive freely, to forgive forever—here is a panorama of wonders.

And when I think of how great my sins were, how dear were the precious drops that cleansed me from them, and how gracious was the method by which pardon was sealed home to me, I am in a maze of wondering, worshiping affection. I bow before the throne that absolves me, I clasp the cross that delivers me, and all my days I give to serve the Incarnate God, through whom I am this night a pardoned soul. (Pastor Scott Henry)

The Reformed Church

560041_581258608579598_11155889_nThe Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) is a communion of Christian churches in the Reformed tradition. We stand on the great Reformation principles of Scripture alone, Christ alone, Grace alone, Faith alone, and Glory to God alone. Established in the 1700s and reorganized in the 1930s, today we seek to proclaim the truth in love as we remain committed to God-centered worship, historic biblical orthodoxy, confessional Reformed theology, Christian missions and Presbyterian government. Our aim is to minister the gospel of sovereign grace to the world. Join us in serving Christ in our part of His vineyard.